Asked to use personal car for work. Advice appreciated!

Howzat

Hi. My girlfriend works in the care sector and is primarily office based in the care home where she works with people with social and learning difficulties. She has recently been advised that she may soon be required to take residents of the care home shopping, or to the doctors etc.
She has been told she must use her own vehicle for these trips for which she will be allowed to claim back a mileage allowance.
My concerns are as follows:
1) That her insurance premiums will rise considerably if she has to use her own vehicle. Can she insist they pay the extra?
2) If she is involved in an accident and one of the residents is injured would she be as well protected legally as if it were a company car and company insurance?

Its my personal opinion that the company should provide the insurance if they want their staff to use their own personal transport for work purposes, however we'd really appreciate some advice from people with insurance knowledge or even those in a similar position.

Thanks in advance, Howard.

huckster

Approach the Insurers to find out the extra cost for this usage and then approach the employers to pay for this. My understanding is that the employers are legally obliged to reimburse for any extra costs that are incurred for using your own vehicle.

She also needs to think about any damage that the people that she transports do to her car. What if they had (say) a walking stick or a walking frame, which dents the car. If she had to claim off the Insurance, this could cost her. She might also not be able to claim for minor dents, due to the excess on the Insurance.

Personally, I would find out from the Insurers the extra cost and then speak to the employers about all these issues. Her employer should put it in writing, as to what costs that they will reimburse.

penguingirl

I've previously used my car for work and added on business use to my policy for no extra cost. I don't know whether yours will be different because she will be carrying clients in her car (mine was just for doing visits etc). My employer paid a generous mileage allowance and that compensated for the increased mileage, running costs etc. as well as petrol.

Andy_L

1) No, usually the milage allowance is enough to cover the excess.

2) Any losses will be covered by her insurance, ie her NCB, excess etc is at risk.

Ultimatly, if they don't pay enough to cover the extra costs then her car is simply unavaliable/unsuitable for use (unless her contract says she has to provide a car which is unlikely but not impossible)

vaio

huckster wrote: »

......My understanding is that the employers are legally obliged to reimburse for any extra costs that are incurred for using your own vehicle........

No legal obligation for them to pay anything, it's all to do with the employment contract.

If it says she must provide a car then she must and if it says they will pay 40p a mile then they must. Anything else is by negotiation and the care home industry is not particularly well known for providing overly generous terms & conditions.

And, depending on what sort of difficulties the residents have there might be safety issues (I know just about all disabled school transport have to have an attendant as well as the driver, even on single patient trips) and her insurance company could well be unenthusiastic about that aspect of it.

huckster

Suggest that the OP's girlfriend obtains advice about this. It may be worth giving the ACAS helpline a call about employment rights.

http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1461

Vaio, I vaguely remember this being talked about a few years ago, some EU laws that the UK adopted, of which part of them was about employers asking their employees to transport those under their care in private cars. I can't recall the exact issue, it might have been more about health & safety, rather than employment law. But I would have thought that a employee must have rights to be reimbursed for costs, as a direct result of the usage outlined and not simply the fuel allowance.

lisyloo

She has recently been advised that she may soon be required to take residents of the care home shopping, or to the doctors etc.

Is it a requirement of her contract that she provides a car? (some people might not even have a car).
If not she could push back on this.
Obviously she needs to bear in mind where this might place her on any potential redundancy list or whether it would hamper her prospect of promotion or payrises, but ultimately it's not obligatory unless she is contractually obliged.
It may not be practical to push back, but always worth knowing your posistion.

That her insurance premiums will rise considerably if she has to use her own vehicle. Can she insist they pay the extra?

Quite often is very inexpensive or even free.
Normally comapnies that pay decent rate e.g. 40p per mile, expect everything to be included in that rate.

If she is involved in an accident and one of the residents is injured would she be as well protected legally

Providing she gets the correct class of insurance, yes. As other have pointed out her excess and NCB are at risk, so if she as a claim she may experience increased premiums for several years.

Its my personal opinion that the company should provide the insurance if they want their staff to use their own personal transport for work purposes, however we'd really appreciate some advice from people with insurance knowledge or even those in a similar position.

I agree.
But in practice she has to weigh up her position in this.
If it's not going to cost much (and might even make a profit) then why make a fuss and advance to the top of the redundancy propects?
What are they paying?
If you have a modest car and they are paying 40p per mile, then she might find it helps cover some of her annual costs.

She could also look into car hire.
I have a car hire place near me that hires car for £34 per day, whereas if I use my own car it costs the company £104, so I can have a car hire for 3 days for approx the same price as one trip in my own private car.
I no longer have a car, so there isn't any dispuate and many of my colleagues have cars but leave them at home for their wife & kids to use.

As I said I don't think she's obliged, but she has to think very carefully about how to deal with this because there is the opportunity for her to appear inflexible.
I would suggest approaching her bosses with alternatives if there are any or at least pointing out the issues for her sensibly so she doesn't appear to be being difficult.

I did have a colleague who use to drive his own very modest car 260 miles per day rather than stay overnight in a hotel because he made a profit.
The company didn't mind because they didn't have to pay for a hotel.
So check the mileage rate first.
If tehy are paying 10p then that's very diffeernt to them paying 40p which should cover all the cossts.

donmega85

When I added business use to my policy it cost £30ish more per year (this was a couple of years ago and at the time I had recently had a crash which was my fault and racked up some speeding points - bad I know!) - so not too bad, probably not worth haggling about.

Employers will then usually pay 40p + per mile which they will say covers fuel, insurance, wear and tear etc. If you get a car allowance it's nearer 10-12p per mile.

Howzat

Thanks for all the replies so far. And thanks to Huckster for the acas link. I will update this when we've had a chance to ask her employers some of the questions raised (especially regarding the safety of passengers) and spoken to her insurance company regarding premiums and liability. Its a bit of a minefield tracking down reliable information. I just want to be certain that she's not under-insured and as Vaio points out, health and safety may be an issue which needs further investigation.

smile86

I'm fairly sure its different for carrying people for work. I am insured to drive to more than one place of work, e.g different care homes/peoples own homes, this is class one business use. I haven't read anywhere that it doesn't cover for carrying people, or that it does. Maybe it would come under carrying people for hire or reward?

Class 1 made little difference to my premium, although some insurers wont quote based on it.

Employer wise, the company I work for pays mileage, but not the extra in insurance, but then it is an agency so going to different places is expected. Carrying people in the car is not so not sure if they are obliged to pay if it is for carrying people.

Sorry, not much help really!

Howzat

We've had confirmation that her employers pay 47p per mile, but expect the employees to sort out the insurance. I'll post back once we have info on any additional amount she may have to pay on her car insurance policy. The amount per mile seemed fairly generous, but checking what car and Auto express web sites for the running costs of her vehicle I've found that it costs approximately 38p per mile to run her car, so its probably about right.

"Is it a requirement of her contract that she provides a car? (some people might not even have a car)."

That's a good point Lissyloo. Its not a requirement that she have a car, and indeed not all of the staff do. She doesn't want to make waves for the sake of it, and isn't against using her vehicle, but it makes sense to be as well informed about these matters as possible. Especially as we are, sadly, quite a litigious society these days. Insufficient or incorrect insurance could be a nightmare should a resident become hurt in an accident and someone decides to sue her.
Apologies if I come across as a bit pessimistic, but sadly these things do happen.